Study notes sharing made easy, a win-win situation for both toppers and backbenchers

During those good old college days, a fine amount of time was wasted in finding the best notes from classmates in college. The poor topper was stalked by everyone, suddenly becoming the centre of attraction during exams. Important notes getting lost right before the time of revision was almost fate. And how can we forget the long queues outside the photocopy shop the night before the exams?

The practice of sharing notes is quite old. Every campus has its own stories and nostalgia of paper notes. However, as technology is meant to make lives convenient, how good would it be if we all had the option of accessing and sourcing these notes on our mobile? Think of the synergy it creates, if the money backbenchers spent towards photocopy and wasting paper goes into the pockets of the topper, who actually paid attention in those endless classes and worked hard to make these notes. Now think, what if sharing notes is not limited to the campus of your college alone? What if we can gain knowledge from students in IIT, IIMs, MIT, Stanford and Harvard?

Notesgen, a marketplace for notes, is an answer to all notes sourcing for students, educators and professionals. Available on both, website and mobile app (Apple and Android), it is enabling students, educators, professionals and even institutions to share their self-prepared notes, typed notes, assignments, presentations, case-studies, blogs and research materials, and sell them across the globe multiple times. Currently, Notesgen offers notes sharing in 14 categories, which include engineering and tech, medical sciences, law, arts, management, IAS, CA/CS, and JEE, etc.

The mobile app is currently available on Apple and Android platforms free of cost from 30 June, 2015, and will soon be launched for Windows, Blackberry and tablets. The buyer can search on the required topic on the app or website and from the relevant searches can see a three-page preview of each contents and the price for download. Once judged and selected based on its usefulness, the buyer can pay the price to the seller and download the content on the phone or computer which can be later viewed offline as well.

The notes and content are available at a reasonable cost ranging between Rs 50 and Rs 250 and are decided by the seller. The user gets the benefit of NCash – a digital currency system, where they get NCash every time they register, adds their notes or make a purchase on Notesgen. Notesgen gives the power in the hands of the users as the content is created, sold and bought by the users themselves who are mostly students, thereby creating an interface where the buyer and the seller understand each other and each other's requirements. Nor the provider asks for exorbitant prices for the seller's notes which make the content easily available and economical.

Manak is the brain behind the venture and had started Notesgen alone but was later joined by his old friends. Manak gave up many lucrative job offers from top most MNCs to pursue his interests. His belief, “the day you start thinking out-of-the-box, that’s day #1, when you actually start thinking,” has been the key driver of the company and describes the culture within. He also reveals that Notesgen has a huge bucket-list of innovative features in the pipeline. Manak is an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University where he completed his MS in eBusiness Technology. Notesgen is his second entrepreneurial stint started during his engineering days.Apart from Manak, the venture is spearheaded under a strong leadership of Roman Khan as Technology Lead implementing features which are driven by content and supplemented by technology, and Ankur Sharma as Operations Lead, who also contributes extensively in product development.

Since its inception in January 2015, Notesgen app has reported over 50,000 users, over 10,000 notes and around 1000 + purchases. The India-based startup has made its way to users from more than 20 countries across the globe. Notesgen is backed by education and content veterans like CL Educate who have invested in the startup and appreciate the value addition it is providing. It has attracted angel investments of $ 50,000 from industry veterans -- Satya (CEO of Career Launcher), Arvind Jha (CEO of Pariksha Labs), and Rajeev Saraf (CEO Lepton Software).

Satya describes the initiative saying,

If a student can have access to student prepared notes from reputed institutions like MIT, Carnegie Mellon, IITs, IIMs, or Stanford, it will be a great value addition.

With the encouraging response, Notesgen aspires to scale up the operations significantly to become one of the top players in the education content area and attract further investments on the funding requirements.

The Indian education market is estimated to be worth INR 5.9 trillion in 2014-15, and is predicted to grow to $40 billion by 2017. With nearly half the population of India below the age of 25 and increasing penetration of Internet & mobile devices in this demographic, the growth of online education market in India is indubitable too.